Status Updates From Achtung-Panzer!: The Develo...

"However there remained one obstacle – the fact that our military and political leadership lacked the nerve to free itself from the Versailles restrictions."

I wasn't there or a German General but, How would Germany have fared against the French and British with mock tanks and wooden guns, Heinz? While as unfair as they saw the treaty, wouldnt it be prudent to build up before breaching the treaty?

"the army was in real danger of letting them (tanks) slip from its mind altogether, or at least under-valuing them to a greater or lesser extent."

What he actually misses hear is the advantages of being a late adopter of a technology. While lose on some technical knowledge and training early you miss all the sunk costs Inherent in new designs. You get to scan the field for the best designs. Germany did that.

(Speaking on the Versailles Treaty)"it is unlikely that they had our best interests at heart when they came to determine the composition of our army."

Yea, no shit.

"And yet again the cavalry showed themselves quite unfitted to appear on the modern battlefield"

This answers my previous question. He was clearly referencing what they force had with them at the time not that they should use cavalry going forward.

"The intervention of horsed cavalry should have been considered only after the breakthrough had succeeded, when open country had been reached"

I wonder if at this point in his analysis if he was putting this in only to appease the Cavalry fudds, or if he actually thought there is still use for it?

"if only Third Ypres had never happened! If only it were possible to bring back to life all the divisions which had been sacrificed in that stupendous grinding battle! Twenty-two million pounds had been expended on ammunition in that struggle – if only they had been devoted to tanks instead!"

Its hard to know of this is serious sentiment, or just salting an open wound of the British.

"It is every bit as wrong to lay down a preparatory bombardment which reduces the terrain to a lunar landscape."

I wonder what the contemporary conceptualization of lunar landscapes were at this time. Clearly by this quote its not far off from reality, but its not like they had lunar probes taking pictures in the 30s.